1. Running head: Not a Planner, but a Builder 1
Robert Moses: Not a Planner, but a Builder
Samuel R. Korson
Eastern Michigan University

2. Not a Planner, but a Builder 2
In a democratic political system such as that of the United States, one of the main
problems faced by urban planners is the inability to “get things done”—that is, big and important
projects—in the face of forces such as partisan disagreement and local obstructionism. One
person who was able to conquer urban bureaucracies and consistently “get things done” was
Robert Moses. For better or for worse, he used his various appointed positions and political
connections to build countless major public works projects in New York City and its surrounding
area between his birth in 1888, the effective start of his career in 1924, and his death in 1981.
The first appointed positions Robert Moses held were chairman of the New York State
Council of Parks and president of the Long Island State Park Commission, which he gained in
1924. During the next forty years of his life, he held various other titles, using his power to
expand the park system of the State of New York, build new urban freeways and parkways, and
clear slum areas for the construction of towering public housing estates. (Galley, 2007)
To accomplish the goal of slum clearance, Robert Moses used his position as chair of
New York City’s Slum Clearance Committee. During his lifetime, Mr. Moses oversaw the
clearance of countless slum areas in New York City in preparation for new urban renewal
projects. One example of such a project is the creation of Lincoln Center.
Strausbaugh (2008) states that the site of Lincoln Center, now one of the most well-
known performance venues in the world, was originally a neighborhood known as Lincoln
Square. It was developed with tenement houses and warehouses, and home to the one of the
largest communities of African Americans and Hispanics in Manhattan. Despite the poor quality
of the housing in Lincoln Square, it had great cultural value. Its center was known as San Juan
Hill, and is thought to be the birthplace of bebop music and was Thelonius Monk’s hometown.
(as cited in Sara, 2011)

3. Not a Planner, but a Builder 3
Strausbaugh (2008) also notes that in order to create Lincoln Center, Moses used his
powers of eminent domain to take ownership of the area and demolish the existing neighborhood.
The opposition from its residents was strong, going all the way to the Supreme Court, but not
enough to stop the demolition of their neighborhood. In 1958, the Court approved the transfer of
ownership of the Lincoln Square neighborhood to Robert Moses (as cited in Sara, 2011). The
following year, President Eisenhower broke ground on the construction of Lincoln Center in its
place. The new complex included the concert hall, known today as Avery Fisher Hall, as well as
a parking garage to allow for suburban residents to easily attend events there using their
automobiles.
As for the residents of Lincoln Square, they were forcibly relocated between 1958 and
1961 by order of the city officials in New York, according to Dodson (1960). While they were
offered priority at a cooperative housing project being built at the time, none of the residents
accepted the offer. Most of them relocated to other slums with similar living conditions to
Lincoln Square. (as cited in Sara, 2011)
The demolition of Lincoln Square is not the only occasion on which Robert Moses used
eminent domain to redevelop part of New York City and displace many poor residents in the
process. Another example of this is the creation of Moses’ Cross Bronx Expressway, which
eliminated around 1,500 New York City apartments which stood in its path. Poor residents in
New York City were not the only ones to be displaced by Moses’ public works projects. His
project to create a new hydroelectric plant to serve the growing urban populations in New York
caused many Native Americans of the Tuscarora tribe to lose their land; the area Moses seized
totaled 556 acres. (Walkowitz & Bender, 2009)

4. Not a Planner, but a Builder 4
A primary goal of Robert Moses’ slum clearance projects was to replace the slum areas in
New York City with new public housing estates. Previously to Moses taking up this task in 1938,
the clearance of slum areas and construction of public housing was done by New York’s State
Housing Board. The problem that the State Housing Board had was that it built tax-exempt
residences, thus failing to bring in money for the City. New York City mayor Fiorello H. La
Guardia discouraged the use of the State Housing Board to build low-rent housing for this reason.
(Rodgers, 1952, p. 141)
The goals Mr. Moses held in regards to public housing were, in fact, rather appropriate by
even modern-day standards. Moses considered access to community facilities by public housing
tenants to be highly important. His initial proposals for new public housing facilities considered
their relation and proximity to existing or proposed park facilities, including playgrounds, as well
as schools, healthcare facilities, and other community facilities. (Rodgers, 1952, p. 144)
Robert Moses was responsible for the construction of several freeways in New York City.
Some examples of roads built by Robert Moses include the Jones Beach Parkway, Van Wyck
Expressway, Bronx River Parkway, Sprain Parkway (Carrion, 2009, p. 1), and Brooklyn-Queens
Expressway. Concerning the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, commonly abbreviated as the BQE,
Moses desired a different route than the original proposal. He wanted to have the highway run
above Union Street, a route which would necessitate the clearance of residences in the
Williamsburg area between Penn Street and Rutledge Street. However, this route was not taken
in favor of an alternative which curved to the west instead. (City of New York, 2001)
One exceptional part of the design of the BQE is a cantilevered section of the elevated
highway which exists near Brooklyn Heights. What makes this section unusual is that, after
local residents expressed their desire to mitigate the negative impacts of the freeway on their

5. Not a Planner, but a Builder 5
neighborhood, an upper-level promenade was constructed above the highway. This idea can be
dated back to an early 19th-century proposal by Hezekiah Pierrepoint to create a park to rival
Battery Park in Manhattan. (City of New York, 2001)
Robert Moses consented to the idea, and a half-mile stretch of the BQE was covered by
parkland. One difference from the residents’ proposal was that the land would not be private
gardens for the neighborhood, but rather public parkland. Now, 46 parks exist along the route of
the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway throughout Brooklyn, and the public promenade Moses
created offers scenic views of lower Manhattan as well as plenty of areas for sitting down and
various recreational facilities. (City of New York, 2001)
In 1934, Robert Moses became head of what became known as the Triborough Bridge
and New York City Tunnel Authority, which was his own creation. The Authority had control
over seven toll bridges and two tunnels. It generated a large amount of income for Moses and
his public works projects. The toll bridge which brought in the most money for Robert Moses
was the Triborough Bridge (Carrion, 2009), which is actually three bridges and a viaduct. It
connects, as its name suggests, three of New York City’s boroughs: Manhattan, Queens, and the
Bronx (Metropolitan Transportation Authority, n.d.).
While Robert Moses undoubtedly redesigned much of New York City for the automobile,
he also completed some projects (aside from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway promenade)
which were beneficial to pedestrians and bicyclists. Parkways in New York’s outer boroughs
included plenty of amenities for those who did not have automobiles. In 1938, following the
Great Depression causing a rise in bicycling in New York, Robert Moses created a plan for an
extensive bike trail system. (Campanella, 2012)

6. Not a Planner, but a Builder 6
Specifically, some parts of the system of bikeways created by Mr. Moses included five-
mile loops through Central Park and Prospect Park, a long stretch following Brooklyn’s Ocean
Parkway, and paths through the Long Island Motor Parkway in Queens. Aside from this system
of bike paths, Robert Moses also built what was originally known as the Circumferential
Parkway, which today has been divided into several named parkways: Belt, Southern, Laurelton,
and Cross Island parkways. The Circumferential Parkway included, throughout its length,
another parkway running alongside it, exclusively for bicyclists. The bikeway along the
Circumferential Parkway is considered a “Class I” bike path today, which is the highest standard
of bike path. Robert Moses, surprisingly, has built more Class I bikeways than anyone else in
New York City. (Campanella, 2012)
In an interview by the Columbia Broadcasting Corporation (1953), Robert Moses stated
that the park system in New York was inadequate by comparison with other American cities,
specifically in terms of the number of people it could accommodate. He went on to declare that,
as statistics showed that people were living longer than before and having more leisure time to
spend outdoors when they retired, parks should also be especially accommodating to older
people as a result of this trend. Now, with the American population aging further yet from the
Baby Boomer generation getting older, this appears to be a rather forward-looking design choice.
As chairman of the New York State Council of Parks and president of the Long Island
State Park Commission, Robert Moses was able to dramatically expand the park system in New
York. His achievements in the expansion of parkland included creating over 2 million acres of
parks, building a new network of parkways, creating 658 playgrounds, developing many new
beaches (Galley, 2007), and building seventeen public swimming pools (“Moses, Robert”, 2008).

7. Not a Planner, but a Builder 7
Though Robert Moses was not one to publish works of planning theory, it can be noted
that his philosophy of design and planning is very similar to that of Le Corbusier, author of La
Ville Contemporaine and postmodernist planning theoretician. Both Le Corbusier and Robert
Moses thought of aggregates and averages as starting points for gaining a greater understanding
of cities. Both wanted, above all, for cities to be as efficient as possible, mainly in terms of their
ability to move automobile traffic. And both were also in favor of demolishing traditional and
historical neighborhoods in cities in order to reconstruct large areas of their focus city (“Moses,
Robert”, 2008)—in Le Corbusier’s case, according to Banham (1960, p. 255), the majority of
historic Paris would be cleared entirely and rebuilt with gleaming skyscrapers (as cited in Hall,
2014, p. 241); in Moses’ case, countless New York City neighborhoods were cleared as “slum
areas” for reconstruction.
While it is doubtless a tragedy that many impoverished residents of New York City lost
their homes and did not necessarily gain new ones as a result of Moses’ projects, there are many
who hold him in high regard today due to his unparalleled achievements in reshaping New York.
Some argue that Robert Moses is responsible for dramatically aiding the economy of New York
City throughout the past several decades by redesigning it for the automobile, and in doing so,
allowing the metropolis to compete with new suburban areas economically.
Robert Moses’ designs for urban freeways in New York served as the model for urban
renewal in cities across the nation. Many of these cities experienced economic benefits due to
their new freeways; others suffered from urban blight and decay when their traditional
neighborhoods were demolished to make way for new highway projects. Today, some cities
have rebounded from these problems, but countless others have not.

8. Not a Planner, but a Builder 8
By the 1950s, the general public’s trust of Moses’ Slum Clearance Committee and New
York’s urban renewal program began to wane. During that decade, Moses attempted to extend
Fifth Avenue through Greenwich Village’s Washington Square Park. Despite strong local
opposition from Greenwich Village residents, the project was successful. This, however, caused
the vengeful residents of Greenwich Village to stage opposition to Moses’ planned Lower
Manhattan Expressway, a project which was eventually cancelled. (Bolan & Nuttall, 1975, p. 54)
Robert Moses has received both positive and negative publicity for his projects in New
York. The most significant embodiment of the latter is undoubtedly Robert Caro’s 1974
biography of Robert Moses, entitled “The Power Broker”. The book contains a full 1,246 pages,
and paints a generally negative picture of Mr. Moses. It harshly criticizes Robert Moses’ actions
and compares them to the newer view of urban planning, which generally disfavors the
destruction of traditional neighborhoods and use of eminent domain for urban renewal. “The
Power Broker” has garnered the Pulitzer Prize for its author. (Goldberger, 1981)
Throughout the history of American urban planning, few—if any—people have been able
to achieve more success in making their planning projects a reality than Robert Moses. Most
planners can only dream of having the degree of autonomy that Moses had. Perhaps, with the
sway of modern-day planning in the direction of emphasizing community input, many would
prefer not to have such autonomy. What remains, and surely will forever remain, up for debate
is whether Robert Moses’ effect on New York City and the rest of the country was a positive or a
negative one overall. It has been said that public opinion will most likely sway in both directions
in the future, as it has in the past.
As for Mr. Moses himself, he was forced into effective retirement in 1968 when his
Triborough Bridge and New York City Tunnel Authority was merged into Governor Nelson A.

9. Not a Planner, but a Builder 9
Rockefeller’s new Metropolitan Transportation Authority. He quietly lived out the rest of his
days on Long Island with his wife, Mary Grady, before passing away in 1981. (Goldberger,
1981) Robert Moses left behind one of the greatest legacies of any planner throughout history.
He could certainly “get things done”, and for this, if nothing else, he deserves admiration.

10. Not a Planner, but a Builder 10
References
Banham, R. (1960). Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. London: Architectural Press.
Bolan, R. & Nuttall, R. (1975). Urban Planning and Politics. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Campanella, T. J. (2012, June 26). Urban Renewal: Robert Moses, Pedal Pusher? The Wall Street
Journal. Retrieved from
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ountid=10650
Carrion, C. (2009, October 9). Robert Moses. Retrieved from
http://nexus.umn.edu/Courses/Cases/CE5212/F2009/CS3/cs3.pdf
City of New York. (2001, November 7). Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Retrieved from
http://www.nycgovparks.org/about/history/historical-signs/listings?id=11721
Columbia Broadcasting System. (1953, February 11). Robert Moses [Video interview]. Longines
Chronoscope. Retrieved from http://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/528870
Dodson, D. (1960). Family and Agency Equity in Urban Renewal. Journal of Educational
Sociology, 34(4), 182-189.
Galley, C. (2007). Moses, Robert. In D. Goldfield (Ed.), Encyclopedia of American Urban
History. (p. 493). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412952620.n277
Goldberger, P. (1981, July 30.) Robert Moses, Master Builder, is Dead at 92. The New York
Times. Retrieved from
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Hall, P. (2014). Cities of Tomorrow: An intellectual history of urban planning and design since
1880. West Sussex, United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Metropolitan Transportation Authority. (n.d.). Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. Retrieved from
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Robert Moses, 1888–1981. (2009). In D. J. Walkowitz & D. E. Bender (Eds.), Social History of
the United States. (Vol. 6, pp. 149-150). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Retrieved from
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Company.
Sara [screen name]. (2011). From the Slum to the Center: Robert Moses and the Creation of
Lincoln Center. Retrieved from http://sghistory.blogspot.com/2011/04/lincoln-center-
robert-moses-and.html
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York Times.